Playing tourist around the area...

The drive-in theater was a lot of fun, would have been more so if it hadn't rained on us for about 10 minutes, making us gun-shy to sit outside through "Kung-Fu Panda." But, we enjoyed tasty snacks and some vintage movie reel commericals, as well as the movie. It was a double feature, so, while the grandparents took the kids home for bath and bed, Rodney and I satyed to watch "Hulk," which I enjoyed,but Rodney did not.



Slade looks to be back to as close as normal as possible, considering he still has heart disease, it's just now controlled. He's been stealing steak bones from the kittens and chasing most cats out of my in-laws' garage, excpet for one calico tabby he allows to sleep beside him. I guess we all have our favorites!

The next day, Rodney and my brother, Joseph, headed out to the fields with Uncle John, to help him dig post holes along his property. They came back, dirty and tired.


On their 4-wheeler trip, Joe and Rodney had found an injured cow in Grandpa Bill's herd, so we all headed down to where she was along the creek to take a look. Her front hoof was swollen, but, not being overly tame, and Grandpa having seen this condition before, he decided she would probably mend on her own, but he would check in on her each day.

Tuesday we went to Springfield to visit the Lincoln Presidental Museum.
It was built in 2005 and has a lot of great interactive features housed within it, including two short (about 20 minutes) shows, "Lincoln's Eyes" and another on "Why do we save this old stuff?" as well as a newsreel section hosted by the late Tim Russert, explaining what the election Lincoln won was like at that time. If you are ever in Springfield, this si a museum worth going to, for people of all ages. Will, at 6, loved the room where he could dress up in period costumes and play with the toys of Lincoln's childhood. There are many different artifacts and alot of life-sized "dioramas" picturing snapshots of Lincoln's life that really brought the President to life.

While "No Photographs" signs are apparently around, I did not see one and snapped this before I was told not to. A scrapbooker's nightmare! Rodney and I also got news that we closed on the house in Pensacola ... we are now homeowners again!




Wednesday was our trip to historical Hannibal, Mo., the home of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer author Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens. We toured the Mark Twain cave in a group of about 25, three of them our children, who were less than thrilled to be there. Will was old enough to fear the unknown, Xan was a bit tired, but could be distracted with Grandpa Mark's pen light, and Brandon was just tired and read for a nap. By the time the tour was over, both Brandon and Xan were asleep and Will was practically knocking people over to get out. For lunch, we headed over to the nearby Tom Sawyer Village, where we could also see that the Mississippi River, while going down, was still flooding a number of buildings. Will sluiced through some gift-shop-purchased sand for some gemstones, which he was quite proud of. I got some gorgeous hand-carved candles for my new house and the rest of the ladies in the group shopped the Christmas store.




Next comes a trip to St. Louis and 4th of July festivities!